To think that if you sit in a reserved train seat that's not yours then you should expect to move?

[Rhine]

Just back from a few days away. We always reserve seats when traveling a long way to ensure that we can all get a seat together. On the way down we got on to find that someone had already taken our seats, the traing was almost full but all moved without hesitation except for one rude women who questioned it. We produced our tickets to prove it and she got up whilst huffing and puffing loudly that she "needed to be sat by her kids" I should add that her kids were not sitting with her, it transpired they were actually sat at the other end of the carriage. So she sits down on the other side of the train and it moves off.

Then at the next stop an elderly lady got on, and told the same women that she was now sitting in her pre booked seat. She once again tried to question it, actually refusing to move at one point and tried to make out that this lady had made a mistake. Eventually she did move, but now started to huff and puff even louder about needing to be near her kids. So I asked her why she hadn't booked her seats as surely it would be easier and it meant she and her children would have been able to sit together but I was promptly told to mind my own business as she's stomped off down the carriage loudly moaning about needing to be near her kids. She found another seat but for ages afterwards I could hear her loudly going on to the person sitting next to her about how rude I was to question why she hadn't pre booked seats and how her need to be sat "Near her kids" was actually more important than those od people whod booked a seat! I was also told by someone sat opposite me that she'd already been moved twice before we got on!

Now if you really need to be sat "near your kids" then common sense dictates that you should pre book seats to ensure you alll get to sit togther, and if others have booked seats then you should expect to be moved on? BTW the "kids" in questions were actually teenagers, not little ones so why they hell she had to be sat near to them is a mystery? And in fact she actually ended up sitting nearer to them when moved on from mine and the elderly lady's seat.

This is not the first time I've encountered this kind of behaviour on trains. One time I' even had a woman point blank refuse to move from my seat and had to fetch a conductor to sort it out. Surely if you sit in a seat with "prebooked" written on it you should expect to be moved on at some point in the journey?

I've been asked to stop using a laptop on the quiet coach.

Apparently the hum and fan was irritating

YANBU to move someone out of your reserved seat but YABU to tell that person they should have reserved a seat themselves. That makes you look like a smug twat.

I have no problem with people reserving seats as quite a lot of people need to make sure that eg they can sit with their DC or they would have trouble standing on a long journey. I tend not to bother myself and if the train is full I will stand up. Though I used to check reserved tickets and if a seat was reserved from the start but remained empty, i would sit in it; if it was reserved from about half-way along the route, I would sit in it until that point (eg travelling from London to Birmingham and a seat is reserved from Milton Keynes to Coventry, I'll sit in the seat until Milton Keynes then get up...).

Of course you should move. It's ok to sit in a reserved seat until the person who booked it gets on the train and your in their spot and you should move.

This thread makes me glad that you can't reserve seats on Chiltern Railways trains.

On Virgin Trains if it says reserved it means from the originating station. If they are reserved from a station en route it says available until name of station. You can reserve tickets up to two hours ahead at any ticket office, or ask their Twitter people to do it.

My boss had booked a specific seat, there's a set of two in carriage C that are individual across a table, and got on to find the woman who had the one opposite had put her child in her seat. She told her that she'd wait for the train manager to sort it out as the woman was insisting she was told she could take both seats. Train manager ended up upgradingmy boss to first class!

East Coast shove all the reservations in the same carriages, drives me mad. But when you book online via their website it lets you change the seat to one of your choice.

Cross Country do reservations on some trains up to ten minutes before departure so the display says may be reserved en route.m

Table seats, especially on Virgin, get booked first. On Virgin they are the only ones with a power socket.

Yes, East Coast seem to squash everyone who's reserved together - I always book a seat but quite often move during the journey if there's a roomier coach elsewhere. I don't mind people sitting in my reservation as there's always the chance the reservee may not show, but only a swivel eyed loon would huff and puff about moving vacating it if asked to do so.

I travel into London with my 3 dc quite regularly, often on the busy commuter trains by necessity. we usually get a seat for all 4 of us fairly nearby, sometime I have the 4y old on my lap. I would certainly give up one of these seats for an elderly, pregnant or disabled person, or person with a younger child, and have taught my children to do the same, but I wouldn't expect any of them to move for an able bodied adult that wasn't in any of the above categories. it's much better for all concerned to have young children sitting down if possible than falling all over other people when standing up IMO

The quiet coach causes a lot of controversy and is usually fully booked on Virgin. In fact now I don't book it because when I travel most of the rest of the train has hardly anyone on it so I actually get much more quiet on a not quiet coach and chance of 4 seats to myself!

People are right to quote
"To help keep things tranquil there are a few rules we need you to abide by in the quiet coach. Mobile phone calls and noise from electronic devices are strictly forbidden, and conversations must be conducted quietly, so everyone can escape distractions or enjoy a nap."

I don't agree with virgin that people talking at all even in whispers is quiet but I agree that is what they say on the rules. The uncertainties of the rules cause a lot of problems. I don't think utterly silently typing is noise.

i have seen so many arguments in the quiet coach. I like utter silence. I seek it at home. I seek it everywhere. So do most people who actively book the quiet coach. The last two times I have booked it and then found noise I have just moved myself to other almost empty coaches because I just find the agro of people disagreeing over what is silence is not worth the hassle.

southwest on Virgin does that mean if it says reserved and you get on after the originating station and the seat is empty the person has either chosen not to sit in their seat or missed the train or has already finished their journey and therefore the seat is available?
Thinking the foreign pair I was trying to help must have got on 7 stops before. So therefore they no longer had a right to their seats?
(By then there were plenty of seats - even now wondering why they chose to find their seats when they did )
Also about the time the train was packed and I couldn't get to our seats for a few stops (aisles were full)... when I did the people in them moved graciously when asked...which I was a bit surprised but pleased about.
(I think I would be a bit upset if I had had time to get settled, thinking seats were free and then being asked to move...)
Reserving at the station 2hrs in advance is fine - if you want to sit in the (in our case small) station where there is absolutely nothing to do but sit in a waiting room...making a 4hr journey take 6hrs ...with DCs...

Hate the whole system!

YANBU

However part of our recent long journey had someone come on and insist our reserved seats we were sat in were theirs. Asked what carriage she was reserved in coach D - were in coach L as all the signs said- we explained this and did later a train guard she didn't believe any of us. Refused to look for her seats stood round with her very loud and annoying child whining and grabbed our seats - as soon as she could but trains was very busy and was reassigning seats as soon as stops were reached for next people journey - at least other seats near us did that and expect ours did two.

Same carriage saw some people getting very uppity with someone else - again guard came they were reading the seat numbers wrong - how I don't know. The guy there were hassling did tell them but he had a very strong foreign accident and they weren't listening.

We physically couldn't get on one of the trains we had seats on - too over crowded - standing only and many people couldn't get on - obviously don't begrudge someone the seats in that situation. Or any situation where we for whatever reason hadn't used the seats.

Actually that leg of journey seat reservations were useless anyway- two adult three children two different coaches and coach with three in - one end - one other and one in middle - given age of our DC not workable.

Another train - same nightmare journey - people were sat in our seats - there stuff were there they were at the shop but as there friends pointed out there were penalty of other seats - so we just sat somewhere else.

I have once many yeas ago refused to move. It was an electronic seating system which said seats were unreserved - guy claimed to have reserved from platform via phone which as this was a few years ago wasn't convinced you could do - he had no proof but his word and he'd already kicked our pushchair dumped a heavy case on it. Our DC was asleep and there were plenty of other seats in the coach. I think he was being a twat.

So people lie about seats being theirs IME - but otherwise no YABNU.

I have also had one teenage child (on a plane actually) asking for seats AWAY from the rest of the family! Not all families want to be close to each other.

I sometimes get a Manchester/London train which is packed. Usually people wait standing by the reserved seats which usually lots of people don't turn up for. you take that seat and then if the reserved person comes along later you move. It's risky. Also in my view if they have reserved it then even if they spend the first 60 minutes in the buffet car they are entitled to that seat at any point in the entirety of the journey for which they have booked it.

The best trains were Newcastle to Edinburgh as a child where there were separate small carriages with 6 or 8 seats on and your family could have the whole thing. Much more privacy and separation. Worst is new met line underground trains with no separation between any carriages on whole train so you cannot avoid the tramp or the sex pest or keep your own noisy children away from the OAP.

OP, YANBU in any respect. If someone says to me "you're in my reserved seat", my response is go "Oh, sorry", and MOVE. I don't put people through the riot act or complain about my woes to the whole carriage. That immediately puts her up for any simple question, whether it's the OP's business or not.

I'm utterly crap at reserving seats, so I'm forever trawling the carriages trying to find a seat which is either empty or where the reservation doesn't affect my leg of the journey.

If I get asked to move by someone whose seat it is, I just move, usually with an apology.

YANBU.

Don't understand posters saying 'YWBU to tell her she should have reserved seats. It's none of you business'. Surely it becomes anyone's business when the woman is moaning loudly to anyone and everyone.

To the PP who had the rude man sit down on their table by their reserved seats - you should have 'accidently' spilt a drink on it!

YANBU - if you sit in seat clearly marked as reserved, you should know that you'll need to move if the holder of the reservation comes along. Not everyone can book tickets in advance, as they may not know what they are doing or when they will be able to travel, but they should know that if this is the case they'll have to take their chances on seating.

People are absolute cunts about this. I once boarded a train at its second stop. There was hardly anyone on it at this point, but of course two women had chosen to sit in my reserved seat (well one of them, ykwim) when every other seat in the carriage was vacant.

To be fair, none of the seats were labelled as reserved. They thought I was being really petty asking them to move, and refused. The point being that I then had sit elsewhere, uncomfortably aware that someone might turn up at any station who had reserved that seat, and I would be expected to move! I knew the train would fill up before I got to my destination. Luckily they got off before it got too full and I was able to reclaim my rightful perch.

I usually have seat reservations because I've bought tickets that are cheaper because they are sold as advance. My journey tickets are invalid if I don't sit in the allocated seats.

So that is why I (and many other passengers) want to sit in our reserved seats even when there are other empty seats nearby.

I once had to get a train at 8 1/2 months pregnant. I'd reserved a seat right at the end of a carriage in order to avoid dragging both DS1 and my pregnant stomach along the aisle. A man was sat in it and there was much huffing and puffing, and asking to see my ticket, and peering down the aisle looking for other seats I could sit in - there were none - when I asked him to move. We'd been going about 5 minutes when there was an announcement that it had come to their attention that not all reserved seats had a booking notice on them - mine did - due to a problem with the booking system, so they wouldn't be able to enforce seat reservations in the event of a dispute.

He actually demanded his seat back. From the vastly pregnant woman with the small child wedged on her knee.

He got this look from me and everyone else within eyebrow-raising distance, and the young guy in the seat opposite said 'Really? Are you serious?' There was a bit more muttering about 'well, if I'd just refused to move straight away, I wouldn't have had to' After a few more looks - people were turning round to look by this point - he developed a sudden need to be at the other end of the carriage.

The thing is, if he hadn't been an arse about it, I would probably have been very apologetic that other people had got away with it and he'd had to move.

I've had it twice with people sitting in my reserved window seat. The first person's English deteriorated when I insisted (she was Japanese. I gave up). The second had a loud conversation with the man across the aisle about how rude I was to make her move her bloody luggage from her reserved seat so she could sit where she was supposed to.

It probably wasn't any of my business as to why this woman hadn't reserved her seats,but she was so bloody obnoxious that I had to say something.

almodcakes "My journey tickets are invalid if I don't sit in the allocated seats."

With advance tickets, you just have to be on the train specified on your seat reservation, it's not mandatory that you sit in the reserved seat.

I travelled with two DC today at a table for four, the other occupant spent the whole journey arranging heavily coded drug deals and having long angry conversations with a woman who was pregnant with his child. No detail went unshared and the kids were . He was actually very polite to us but looked seriously scary. He was in my seat but for once I didn't make a fuss and sat next to him.

I'm on a virgin train right now! They've mucked up all the coach lettering and have therefore cancelled all the seat reservations. There are people being chucked out of first class by the guard.

With advance tickets, you just have to be on the train specified on your seat reservation, it's not mandatory that you sit in the reserved seat.

When I book advance tickets on East Midlands Trains, it certainly is mandatory to occupy the reserved seats